* Beasts! II, the sequel to Fantagraphics’ hit mythological/cryptozoological monster art book, is everywhere today. Here’s The Blot author Tom Neely’s contribution, a skinwalker in mid-transformation.
* And over at the Beasts! blog, editor Jacob Covey presents these Beasts!-inspired illustrations of Bigfoot and a sea monster from Josh Cochrane. (Via Heidi MacDonald.)
* I probably play video games once, maybe twice a year (not counting Snood), so I’m always on the outside looking in, but I still find the cultural and artistic ramifications of video games fascinating. So this New York Times piece on the increasingly communal nature of the top-selling video games definitely caught my eye. I would question, however, the notion that this is a new development in gaming. All my fondest video-game memories–swapping Zelda strategies with the kids down the block, getting stoned during marathon Mario Kart and Goldeneye sessions in college, taking breaks to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in the middle of the workday at A&F–are group efforts.
* I saw this Denny’s commercial starring Tony “Paulie Walnuts” Sirico for the first time the other night, and after enjoying the hell out of his exquisitely funny rage, godDAMN I was almost overwhelmed with longing for The Sopranos. Best show ever.
* Finally, the long-mooted film version of Books of Blood, the framing story to the Clive Barker short-story collections of the same name, has now been officially announced. This will be the first of a series of adaptations of stories from the series (well, “first” if we’re not counting Rawhead Rex and Nightbreed and Candyman and Lord of Illusions and The Midnight Meat Train).